


The Skies Series

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 23:08:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15568404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Inspired by our beautiful skies. Mulder and Scully outdoors, under the sun, the moon, the stars.





	1. Dawn

Through the tent flap the grass is the colour of freshly poured sauvignon blanc. The cool air has left a moist frost on the nylon. There are bright birds flitting from limb to limb in the tallest tree. Their chatter fills the air. Mulder rolls her shoulders and she sinks back into him.

“Thank you,” she says, covering his hand with hers.

“What for?”

“This.”

He gestures to the sky. “This,” he says, “is really nothing to do with me, although I doff my cap at your gratitude, Scully. This is a result of clear skies over the horizon to the east permitting the sun to light the undersides of moisture-bearing clouds.”

She looks at the candy pink tufts, the duck egg sky, the branches reaching up for blessing. “Mulder,” she whispers, turning to wrap her arms around his neck. “You are the biggest fucking nerd.”

He chuckles. “But you love me, right?”


	2. Dusk

Sinking molten into the smoke-grey hills, the sun makes one final impression on the car windshield; a dozen burning swords striking out. Scully hair is aflame as she sits on the hood, knees up, bare legs shapely in the gloaming light.

“What do you see?” he asks.

“I see rest and the chance for renewal. Dreams coming in on the night clouds.”

His breath catches. She is more than beautiful this way, lost in thought, drowsy from doing nothing.

“What do you see, Mulder?”

The last vestiges of light fall away and he sees only the memory of her in the darkness. If he blinks, her image will disappear.

“I see you, Scully. I only ever see you.”


	3. Moon

It’s a cycle. It’s always a cycle with them. Waxing and waning. Umbras and penumbras casting light and dark, shadow in motion. Round and round. How are they not dizzy? Perhaps those around them are.

He knows this love eclipses everything, this tidal flow through his veins that shines so bright, some days he feels like a holograph. In absentia he would still glow.

She shifts in his arms. “It’s been 27.32166 days since I last made love to you, Scully.”

“Is that your idea of a romantic pick up line?”

“It’s the sidereal month; it represents the moon’s movement through space relative to a starting point in the stars.”

Her hair tickles his face, her hand falls heavier in his lap. “You sure know how to make a girl feel good, Mulder. I’m all a-tingle.”

The rush of goosebumps across her skin tells him a truth. “Did you know there are rules for naming the craters on the moon?”

“Rules are good, Mulder.”

He moves her hand lower and she doesn’t stop him. “Typically, they are named after famous astronomers and scientists.”

“Uh-huh,” is all she says, but it’s more of an encouragement than an acknowledgement.

In his mind’s eye he sees her, wild under the full moon, hair streaming, arm raised high, bathed in blue light, an ancient goddess sent through the phases of time to save him. He feels the pull of her, the undeniable force of her. He knows her near side and her dark side. Above him, she is heavenly.

“Lunacy, Mulder,” she whispers, melding her lips to his. “This is lunacy.”

Their madness is languid.

“Scully?” he asks later. “What will you be doing in 2022?”

“What’s happening in 2022?” she says.

“According to the saros cycle there’ll be a lunar eclipse. Each cycle has 6585.3211 days. That’s 14 years, 4 leap years…”

“Yes,” she says.

“Yes, what?” “I’ll marry you.”

He nods. He’s holding her breasts in his hands as they spoon and he thinks of the rhyme, the cow jumping over the moon and the absurdity of rhymes and patterns and life and love. He smiles.


	4. Stars

It’s a rash, swirled across the sky. It’s paint-splatter, it’s glitter spilled, it’s polka-dot on acid. It’s like nothing he’s ever seen.

“This is unbelievable, Scully.”

She twists towards him, head pushing into his bicep just enough to make him wince and shift his position. The grass under him opens up, tickling his neck. “That’s a lot coming from you,” she says, running a finger down the centre of his chest.

Even through the cotton her touch sparks something in him. Mystical, magical, just like the sky. “As a child I spent so long staring into the night that the stars fused together until all I could see was grey. Sometimes I would see Samantha’s face in the patterns. Sometimes monsters.” Her lips are moist under his touch and her mouth twitches into a sad smile.

“Pareidolia,” she whispers against the pad of his thumb.

“Like seeing Elvis in a potato chip.” There’s an imprint of the stars behind his eyes as they kiss. There’s an imprint of Scully on his heart.

“Mulder, why are we here?” Her leg hooks around his waist so he pulls her closer. “We have a perfectly good deck.

“It’s got a roof. You can’t see the stars above you.”

He follows the rhythm of her heel in his buttocks, grinding against her. She rests her forehead against his, their secret language of love. “If you keep doing that I’ll be seeing stars pretty quickly,” she says.

“Have you ever made love in the open, Scully?”

She giggles into his mouth and kisses his question away. “No, but I’ve fucked out in the open.”

“Oh,” he says, not quite expecting that. He blinks and looks back up at the flush of starlight.

“You showed me what making love was.” She climbs on top of him, kneading this chest until his tee-shirt is ricked up. She bunches it around his neck. “You have so much love in here,” she says and bends to kiss beside his left nipple. She kisses the indent between his clavicles then trails her lips across to find the sweet spot just under his left ear. “And here and here.” All the while she’s gently rocking her pelvis back and forth. Her mouth finds his forehead and he lets his eyes close. “Take off your pants,” she whispers against the side of his face and he’s unbuckling his belt as she lifts herself higher to allow him the freedom.

She shifts down, kissing his right hip, just above the band of his boxers. Her hand slips under the fabric and he’s ready for her touch. “S’good, Mulder.”

“Scully,” he says. ”Did you just kiss me in the shape of Lyra?” She doesn’t respond and he lets Vega burn behind his eyes as her lips close around him.


	5. Space

She can still hear the inflection in each word as he made his vows. The resonance of his promise vibrates in her mind and her heart and she hums a little as she settles in the seat.

That year of the lunar eclipse, 2022, he held her fingers in his and she imagined his words, strings of consonants and vowels linking together and floating in an arc between them, burning bright and exploding in golden sparks over their heads.

“I told you once you were my constant, my touchstone. And I meant it. But you are more than that, Dana Katherine Scully. You are the inhale to my exhale, the zenith to my nadir, you are the earthlight to my darkspace. I love you. I have always loved you, in whatever life we have lived. I will always love you, in whatever plane of existence we find ourselves next. You are my immortal.”

He didn’t cry then. She had expected him to, her Mulder, her Byronic hero, her world, as it turns out. She had expected him to break down and weep for all those who hadn’t made the journey with them. Instead, he kissed her knuckles one by one and never took his eyes off her all evening, as though she might disappear through some bend in time and torture him with her absence.

He cried when she told him they’d become grandparents and he cried when Skinner died and he cried when Bill passed too. Some days, mainly the days that stretch too long, she wishes she had kept some of those tears, crystal-clear evidence of his capacity for love.

The captain welcomes them on board and she is taken back, a long way back, to her thesis and remembers the way Mulder pulled quotes from that brilliant mind of his, to gauge her reaction, to startle her, to tease her, a true mark of his love. If Fox Mulder teased you, he really rated you. There was a case once, about time-travel. She was still rational back then, still guided by the rules, still the no to his yes.

“You were a lot more open-minded when you were a youngster,” he told her.

Look at me now, she thinks as they take off. It’s October 13th, because life demands patterns, something to orbit around. From her window, the earth is hurtling away. She says goodbye to that world, and holds her true world on her lap, an urn patterned with little grey men, of course.

This was his wish, a far-sighted nod to some old joke between them. “Happy 100th, Mulder,” she whispers.


End file.
